Tasting Gluten Food - Is It Ok?

[glumech]

So I am new to Gluten-Free. I was diagnosed Celiac a few months back.

I have been a Chef for a 2 years now, need to know about tasting food.

If I continue to cook foods that are made of or contain gluten, can I taste and not swallow the food?

Anybody have a recommendation how to go about this?

As a Chef I have to make sure that the food I produce tastes amazing, can't do that if I can't taste..

[kareng]

So I am new to Gluten-Free. I was diagnosed Celiac a few months back.

I have been a Chef for a 2 years now, need to know about tasting food.

If I continue to cook foods that are made of or contain gluten, can I taste and not swallow the food?

Anybody have a recommendation how to go about this?

As a Chef I have to make sure that the food I produce tastes amazing, can't do that if I can't taste..

The short answer is " no". Even a crumb starts the immune response. Even if it doesn't bother you at first, it is destroying your intestines. There really is no way to taste then spit every bit of food out. Some stays in your mouth. Sorry.

[Skylark]

You cannot taste the food without getting some into your body. Even your oral mucosa is sensitive to gluten, as we find anti-gliadin IgA in saliva.

I don't know what to tell you as far as cooking. I did know a guy with a masters degree in culinary arts who hardly ever used flour in his recipes. I would ask him what on the menu was gluten-free in his restaurant and just about everything that wasn't obviously wheat like pasta or breaded foods naturally had no gluten in it. All his sauces were thickened with vegetable purees and he laughed at me when I asked if he used seasoning mixes that might have gluten. He made everything from scratch. When it comes to testing pasta and breads, you'll have to ask someone who is not celiac to evaluate them.

[T.H.]

Agreed - you'll simply never fully heal. It only takes a minute amount of gluten to make it down your throat for you to react in the gut. And since your saliva is coming into contact with anything in your mouth, some gets down your throat. Kissing someone who eats gluten is enough to make us react, so is using chapstick with gluten - with that small an amount making you react, you can imagine that putting it in your mouth is simply not going to work.

I would disagree that you can't ensure your food tastes amazing if you can't taste it, however. You simply won't get to know what it tastes like yourself - you'll have to rely on others to assist. Coincidentally, I was reading an article on this a few months back re: a culinary school and what students with allergies had to do in order to learn how to cook when they couldn't taste everything they created. I believe it was in the magazine Living Without, if you're interested. Possibly Gluten Free Living.

If you can find someone who seems to have a similar sense of taste, I would think that's best. I personally know another chef-in-training who has a severe allergy to wheat, nuts, and mint, and that's what she does. In culinary school currently, she has other students she trusts taste her food and describe the flavor to her, and goes from there. She's gotten better at being able to tell what smell is going with the 'good' response in her tasters, too, as I understand it.

Good luck, though. It's going to be a big change, that's for certain. But from what I've read, it does seem an achievable change.

[Jestgar]

I don't know what to tell you as far as cooking. I did know a guy with a masters degree in culinary arts who hardly ever used flour in his recipes.

I like this idea. Any run of the mill chef can use flour. Why don't you aim for being an extraordinary chef who cooks only with whole foods?

[Takala]

Not really much of a need to use wheat in anything with all the other grains available.

Have somebody else taste. Otherwise -

Use your nose and sense of smell - which should become more refined once you are off the gluten for awhile.

[lcarter]

Digestion starts in the mouth when saliva is mixed with food. Minute food particles begin to pass through the mucous membrane in the oral cavity even before it's swallowed. For an example of this type of absorption, think of the heart patient who has to take nitroglycerine for emergency chest pain. The nitro pill is placed under the tongue for rapid absorption directly into the blood stream. So no, it is not safe to taste and spit out bites of food. Some bakery folks with celiac have even had to change careers because of the wheat flour that becomes air-born when it is added or mixed into batters. Even though the wheat is not ingested directly, it still finds it's way into the blood stream. [Mucous membranes cover all the orifices of the body...mouth, nose, eyes, etc..] Perhaps you could consider becoming a specialist chief, cooking only gluten free food. Sorry to have to relate this sad bit of news, as wish we could tell you differently. But on the other hand...it would be wonderful to have you cook for us! Best of luck as you work through this.